/m/amateur

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I'm more bothered by his assessment of Eckstein's output than his view of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (I'm an Archers of Loaf man myself). Eckstein is miles better than Willie Bloomquist as a ballplayer (I realize he acknowledged he was better, but it's kind of offhand and not terribly enthusiastic). Eckstein had a legitimately productive 10-year career. Reducing him to little more than a poster child for scrappiness is off base.

In Pavement’s case, the band had trouble writing cohesive melodies and recording them without falling apart in the process. Depending on your perspective, you might think it’s cool that people lacking basic musicianship skills can succeed in the business, or you might be annoyed that they have a recording contract when people who write songs and play instruments with some proficiency are struggling to support themselves and their families.

The problem is that this is simply wrong. Pavement had solid "musicianship skills", in that all of them could play their instruments competently (except Bob Nostanovich, but that's why they had two drummers). Gary Young was a good drummer, he just looked sloppy on stage because he constantly threw his drum sticks all over the place, the guy who replaced him was solid, Mark Ibold was a solid bass player in a you-don't-notice-him sort of way, and once you've got a competent rhythm section you're a competent rock band. There were a million bands in the 1990s that couldn't play their instruments and plenty labels and fans that fetishized this, but all Pavement has in common with them was that their first couple of releases weren't of the highest recording quality. What Pavement did was to choose to be sloppy and not to play at the edge of their skills but rather well under them and lazily. Sure, Malkmus is more vocalist than singer, but Lou Reed had been putting out records for 25 years when Pavement's first album came out, so that's neither here nor there. Pavement were just a band that made some aesthetic decisions. If you want Bloomquistian untalented-but-scrappy from that era you should buy yourself something from Beat Happening's oeuvre.

EDIT: And I'm not now and wasn't then especially a Pavement. I was more into the people who couldn't play!

EDIT EDIT: What I'm saying is that Pavement were like Ichiro -- they could have written cohesive melodies and kept together while playing them if they'd wanted to.

What I'm saying is that Pavement were like Ichiro -- they could have written cohesive melodies and kept together while playing them if they'd wanted to.

I remember once being part of a Maxwell's late nite rolling rock drinktank about Pavement...and someone (might have been Chris Stamey) said that Malkmus could have rolled out pure pop hit after pure pop hit but much like Chilton, he'd rather "drag a rake over the recording" to give it lasting quality. Or something.